In this week’s Property Surveying blog post, we are going to be discussing party wall surveying matters and procedures.
In particular, we are going to be looking at the free information service that we provide here at Stokemont and how it can best assist you.
As a firm of surveyors, we are not only party wall surveyors, we are also chartered building surveyors. This places us in an excellent position to be able to offer a unique blend between party wall surveying expertise and property understanding.
A little known fact of the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 is that anyone can refer to themselves as a party wall surveyor. In fact the Act defines a party wall surveyor as follows:
“surveyor” means any person not being a party to the matter appointed or selected under section 10 to determine disputes in accordance with the procedures set out in this Act.
This is set out within Section 20 of the Party Wall etc. Act 1996.
In practice, this means that the degree of public information and advice out there not only varies in terms of content, but also validity.
We are very proud to confirm that all of our party wall surveyors hold qualification with governing bodies such as the RICS, CIOB, CABE or CIARB.
Our free advice service consists of the following.
Email Discussion
The first impartial and free advice that we offer is to review any drawings or information that you would like to pop over via email.
One of our party wall surveyors will look at the information and provide reasoned and pro active advice on to how to best deal with the matter at hand.
The aim of this to hopefully be to clarify and inform you, thereby giving you all of the facts and information required.
Telephone Discussion
The second type of free party wall advice we offer is telephone discussion.
You are more than welcome to give us a call at our head office, we will happily discuss your query, hopefully best advising how to deal with or overcome specific issue.
Telephone discussion is often a lot quicker and more straightforward to resolve the matter at hand.
It not only gives you the opportunity to discuss the matter in greater detail with the surveyor, it also gives you a firmer understanding of the matters being discussed.
We would tend to advise telephone discussion as the first point of call with our free party wall advice offering.
Arranging a Meeting
The final free party wall advice service that we offer is to arrange a meeting with one of our party wall surveyors at our Marylebone head office.
In this meeting, you are welcome to bring across and along any information you have to hand.
We will review that, provide you with firm advice and hopefully resolve the query at hand.
It is important to note that meetings need to be pre-booked, and often our surveyors will be on site carrying out property inspections, or have office time booked into their diaries where they are handling other matters.
Therefore do bear that in mind if the plan is to go to one of the offices without a pre-booked meeting.
Here at Stokemont we understand that party wall surveying matters are stressful and confusing. It is important to note that both the RICS and FPWS also have free party wall advice lines.
On these party wall advice lines, you are going to be speaking with surveyors who undertake party wall work and have put forward their services as part of the package of offering free advice via their respective governing bodies.
As with any matter in dispute, we would advise that you seek as much input as possible in an effort to resolve the issue.
The more clarity you have, the more likely you are to be able to make a reasoned and informed decision.
If you would like to take us up on our offer for free advice, please feel free to get in touch with us today and we will be more than happy to assist and advise you.
We also have a number of informative party wall surveying blog posts available on our website. Furthermore, we have informative party wall surveying videos available on our YouTube channel. Both of these are designed to offer you as much information as possible in a mutual and impartial manner.
